Man’s 10-year Civilization II game sheds insight to the future

If you’ve ever played Civilization II, you know that it is meant to be a symbolic representation of the way society evolves and changes over time. You also know that there is no definitive end point to the game. So what happens when someone managed to keep the same game running for 10 years? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the year 3991.

The player in question goes by the name Lycerius, and says he has been logging into his game of Civ 2 since 1992. In his game, the year is now 3991, and there is no end to what has become a 1700-year war. Here’s partially how he describes what the virtual world has become.

He says that the ice caps have melted 20 times over due to the constant nuclear wars, which has led to massive amounts of swamp land. “As a result, big cities are a thing of the distant past. Roughly 90% of the worlds population (at it’s peak 2000 years ago) has died either from nuclear annihilation or famine caused by the global warming that has left absolutely zero arable land to farm.

“Engineers (late game worker units) are always busy continuously building roads so that new armies can reach the front lines. Roads that are destroyed the very next turn when the enemy goes. So there isn’t any time to clear swamps or clean up the nuclear fallout,” he wrote. As for the state of government – “The only governments left are two theocracies and myself, a communist state. I wanted to stay a democracy, but the Senate would always over-rule me when I wanted to declare war.” Is this what we can expect nearly 2000 years from now? Read his entire analysis in the “via” link below.